The Sex-Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not really an adventurous person. I’ve lived a pretty typical American life, and I’ve never been out of the country. Reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift In the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost is almost like reading a fantasy novel of another realm. Whereas I’ve never even seen the countries that border the US, author Maarten and his wife Sylvia travel to the Kiribati, a country consisting of a series of atolls spread throughout the Equatorial Pacific.

After finishing grad school and flitting around through random temp jobs, Maarten doesn’t really know what to do with his life. Sylvia is in a similar boat, and the two of them begin searching for jobs in remote parts of the world. As someone who is in a similar stage of confusing unemployment, I can't help but admire Sylvia and Maarten for being so brave. I won't even contemplate moving out of my state, and these two apply to move halfway across the globe. Eventually, Sylvia gets an offer to join a development team on Kiribati’s capital atoll Tarawa, and when the two arrive Maarten assumes the role of homemaker on an island known for its subsistence living.  Sylvia’s predecessor told them that the island was hell, and Maarten and Sylvia begin the adjustment process.

This is what Tarawa is like: It is hot. So hot. So hot that when one I-Kiribati (the name for people native to the island) went to Hawaii, he returned complaining how bitterly cold the trip was. Water is hard to come by on the atoll, and the only real type of vegetation is coconut trees. Fish are the main staple of the Kiribati diet. The average I-Kiribati consumes over 400 pounds of fish per year. There are no seasonings to put on the fish, and many of the types of fish that surround the atoll are toxic. Disease is common on Tarawa. Maarten and his wife suffer from all kinds of illnesses during their stay. But somehow, the island becomes their home, and they are more than a little bit shell-shocked when they return to America two years later.

The book is full of funny and terrifying anecdotes. For example, at one point, Maarten attempts to create a garden. He builds a fence for it, only to discover that the piece of plastic he plucked out of the reef to use as a latch is actually a hospital IV full of blood.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals is a really fantastic travel book, but also one that is great for the reader interested in international development. Maarten takes ample time in the book to discuss the pitfalls of the international aid industry and developmental politics. He goes into the complex history of Tarawa and Kiribati while also describing the internal politics of the country.

As someone who studied politics in college and has read many books and articles on the international aid industry, The Sex Lies of Cannibals stands out as a more relatable exploration of the issues that plague the developing world and the aid industry. The book is a personal look, written by someone who has seen the aid industry at all angles.

After returning from Kiribati, the Troosts are strapped with debt. Maarten says to Sylvai at one point in the book after they return from Tarawa, "Remember that meal we had in Annapolis three years ago? Well, after three years of interest and late fees and finance charges, that meal is going to cost me $1,500" (266).

Their unfortunate financial situation pushes Maarten into accepting a job with the World Bank, where he receives a large pay check but eventually becomes the kind of person he used to hate. Maarten's experience with grassroots development projects like the ones Sylvia started on Tarawa, and his knowledge of the projects the World Bank starts makes him a reliable source. He has seen both, and knows that the large-scale ones created by international institutions are out of touch with the reality of the places they claim to help. But he also understands that even at a grassroots level changing a society is no easy feat.

The book is hilariously and masterfully written, while also being educational and illuminating. This is a must-read. And if you're an inexperienced traveler like me, the book offers a lens into a world that is both foreign and engrossing.

Treasure Island!!!

Sara Levine's unnamed 25-year-old protagonist and narrator of Treasure Island!!! is a pretty insufferable person, with no real redeeming qualities. But somehow, Levine managed to write a good, first-person story through an unreliable, mean, and unstable narrator.

The plot involves the protagonist developing an obsession with the Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. She attempts to learn lessons from the book and start a new life based on four qualities she admires in Stevenson's character Jim Hawkins: BOLDNESS, RESOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE, and HORN-BLOWING. Instead of creating an adventurous new life for herself, the protagonist ruins her life and her relationships. 

There are a few important aspects to the book that make it so readable, even though the protagonist is so self-centered and cruel. First of all, before things start to get really tense in the very last few chapters of the book, Treasure Island!!! is incredibly humorous and well-written. Levine knows how to combine black humor and absurdity to create funny sketches and scenes. Secondly, the supporting characters are all sympathetic and help ground the book in reality through dialogue. These characters, especially the protagonist's family, also have their own problems that help shift the direction of the book away from the protagonist's self-made calamities and help raise the emotional stakes in the novel.

Lastly, the book serves as the anti-guide of how to live your life. Where as the protagonist finds a way to live a "good" life by studying Stevenson's Jim Hawkins, I've discovered exactly how to not live my life by studying Levine's protagonist. We have a lot of things in common at the moment, with both of us moving back in with our parents and all. As long as I stay away from the protagonist's versions of BOLDNESS, RESOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE, and HORN-BLOWING, I know I will be just fine.

If you enjoy a quirky book with an unreliable narrator and some fierce humor, than Treasure Island!!! is something worth checking out.

(Note-I couldn't really come up with a playlist for this one. Oh well!) 

High Fidelity

Rob is an asshole, or as British author Nick Hornby writes in High Fidelity, an arsehole. I’ve seen the movie High Fidelity before, with John Cusack playing lead character Rob, and move-Rob is an asshole too. But book-Rob is definitely more of a jerk.

High Fidelity is about record store owner, music enthusiast Rob and his lawyer girlfriend/ex-girlfriend Laura. The two split up, and then Rob is left trying to make sense of the break-up, of Laura going to live with someone named Ray. He is also left trying to figure out his life, his career direction, and what to do about his floundering record store. He contemplates death. He sleeps with an American singer-songwriter. This book is all about a man in transition, trying to figure out his life, so naturally I could relate to Rob a bit. Rob is sort of what would happen if a mid-twenty something was actually a mid-thirty something. He is still directionless, immature, and self-centered. His closest friends, Dick and Barry, are similar.

But there is something sympathetic about Rob, and admirable too. He has impeccable music taste. Rob reminds me of the jerky boys I put up with in high school because they had good taste in music. And at the end of the day though, he ends up being the kind of character you have a soft spot for, although I still can’t figure out why. He isn’t completely horrible, I’ll give him that, but he is still a real big jerk.

High Fidelity is great because it is an in depth study of Rob’s character and of his relationship with Laura as well as an amazing commentary on long-term relationships. However, it is also a book about music. Rarely can a book about music and a book about relationships be combined so brilliantly, so that each of the themes is equally expressed. Usually one theme overshadows the other.

Written in the first person, some of Rob’s music-musings really hit home for me. Rob, Dick, and Barry constantly list their top fives (favorite singles, best songs about death), so you can easily get an insight into everything these well-versed characters enjoy. In my favorite music-music, Rob is discussing some of his top favorite songs, most of which are sad (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart” by Neil Young, “Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me” by the Smiths, etc.), “Some of these songs I have listened to around once a week, on average (three hundred times in the first month, every now and again thereafter), since I was sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one. How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can that not turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong? What came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music?” (Hornby 25). 

So, whether miserable or happy, here is a playlist of some of Rob’s favorite songs:  

High Fidelity playlist--On Youtube1. Let’s Get it On—Marvin Gaye
2. Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me|
3. Janie Jones—The Clash
4. Thunder Road—Bruce Springsteen
5. Got to Get You Off My Mind—Soloman Burke
6. The Look of Love—Dusty Springfield
7. This is the House that Jack Build—Aretha Franklin
8. Baby Let’s Play House—Elvis Presley
9. Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag—James Brown
10. Back in the USA—Chuck Berry
11. So tired of Being Alone—Al Greene                 

A Song For You

When I reviewed Patti Smith’s Just Kids, I discussed the nature of the relationship she had with artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1960s-70s. Smith achieved great notoriety since those prior decades and Mapplethorpe—although less well-known—did achieve some fame as well.

Just Kids reminded me of a book I read last summer, A Song for You by Kathy West. The book is another merging of creative non-fiction, autobiography, and memoir—much like Smith’s book—and also follows the era of the 60s and 70s through the lens of music and art, as well as transitions from young adulthood to adulthood. Unlike Smith and Mapplethorpe, writer West and her lover and friend Rick Philp ended up pushed to the side of musical history, left out of the mainstream tales the 60’s—although their story is just as important as Smith’s.

West’s writing style is different from the romanticism and thick imagery offered in Just Kids, although it has the same slow but thorough pace. Unlike Just Kids, A Song for You offers more of a colloquial retelling of West's life and relationship with Philp through concise prose instead of poetic language.

Philp joins a garage band called the Myddle Class as the lead guitarist. They headline for the Velvet Underground before anyone cared about the band, back when Al Aronowitz, the blacklisted journalist, was their manager (not the legendary Andy Warhol). They tour and meet Jimi Hendrix. The band and 

West befriend Carole King and Gerry Goffin. West continues to have a friendship with King and Goffin through most of the book. Just as Smith did in Just Kids, A Song for You offers an intimate portrait into the lives of the 60s most well-known names.


West’s friendship and romance with Philp changes throughout the years and throughout the book. Things begin to take a grim turn as Philp’s friendship with his roommate, a man nicknamed Dog, begins to get possessive and terrifying. Dog seems to believe he has some type of control over Philp—Dog resents West and other women for their closeness to Philp. One night, Dog brutally murders Philp. The Myddle Class disbands and Philp and West’s story becomes buried in the past. Their names disappear from the limelight for decades, until West decided to publish this book. 

A Song for You is surely to be of great use to anyone who wishes to learn more about the garage rock scene from an inside perspective. The book serves as an entranceway into the lost tales of the 1960s and 70s. Where as Smith achieved her success as a musician, Philp's was unfairly and violently cut short. The Myddle Class is band that represents transition, for they will be forever cemented in the phase between a promising start and major fame.

A Song for You playlist--Listen on Youtube playlist--Listen on Youtube

1. Don't Let Me Sleep Too Long--The Myddle Class (This video was created by author West herself)

2. All Along the Watchtower--The Jimi Hendrix Experience 

3. Gates of Eden--Myddle Class

4. So Far Away--Carole King

5. Wind Chime Laughter--The Myddle Class

6. Sweet Jane--The Velvet Underground 

7. Free at the Wind--Myddle Class

8. Up on the Roof--Carole King 

9. Mr. Tambourine Man--Bob Dylan 

Just Kids

My dad gave me Patti Smith’s Just Kids for Christmas earlier this year, but I took forever to get around to reading it. As a Writing and Politics double major in college, I always had mountains of books to read for school and found that time to read for pleasure often just didn’t exist. After I turned in my very last final paper of my college career, I immediately plucked Just Kids off of my bookshelf and dove in.

I didn’t know very much about Patti Smith’s life, although I had been a fan of her music for quite sometime. I knew she dated Tom Verlaine of Television, who coincidentally looks like a male Patti Smith. I knew she grew up in my home state of New Jersey and lived in the city like many other artists of her era. But I didn’t know much about Smith’s relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Their relationship is the focal point of Just Kids, the lens through which Smith sees the 1960s and 70s. When Smith embarks into New York City for the first time, she scrambles around trying to find jobs. Eventually, she meets Robert Mapplethorpe, a young artist and the two join together, kindred lost souls on the streets of New York City.

The two strike up a romance, one that morphs over time. More important than their romance, however, is the artistic space and spirit that Smith and Mapplethorpe nurture between them. They—especially Mapplethorpe—are constantly creating. Smith writes poetry, records songs, paints. Mapplethorpe takes photos, paints, and always tries to push the envelope with by depicting things like S&M imagery. Smith musical inspiration—Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground—and her love for poet Rimbaud inspire her work. Mapplethorpe’s never-dying admiration of Andy Warhol plays a significant role in shaping his art.

A cast of 1960s/70s artists weave in and out of their lives and the pages of the book. Mapplethorpe and Smith stay at the famous Chelsea Hotel for a period of time where they meet Janis Joplin. Hendrix makes an appearance later on. Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, the punk poet, are there as well.
An important narrative in the book is how Smith and Mapplethorpe remain tied in different ways until the end of his life. The art they create in the shared space of their trust for one another carries them from lovers, to friends. It helps them through Mapplethorpe’s battle with defining his sexuality and his later struggle with AIDs. And it helps them through the inevitable poverty that comes with being a young artist.

Beautifully crafted, Just Friends is a long, articulate portrait of the 60’s and Smith and Mapplethorpe’s world. Patti Smith has proven herself not only as a musician and a poet, but a wonderful crafter of long-form creative non-fiction, autobiography, and memoir. My only complaint is that the book can be slow-paced at times, but even when it is slow the language is consistently rich.

While reading the book though, I couldn’t help but think how different the world was at that time—
their room at the Chelsea was $50/week, for example. Smith has said herself that the East Village is no longer hospitable to young artists like her and Mapplethorpe. Even Brooklyn, which served as the artists’ haven only a few years ago, is now a pretty pricey place to live. The world has changed since the 60s into a place where the room and ability for the young artist to grow has gone from challenging to near impossible. 

That isn't saying that Smith and Mapplethorpe had it easy. In one part of the story, Mapplethorpe is so malnourished that he gets horribly ill and contracts trench mouth. If anything, Smith also disproves the notion that it was easy for people to go to the city and become an artist without any struggle. She illuminates just how hard things could be, even if at the end of the day 1960s East Village was a better scene for the starving artist than it is today. 

Just Kids playlist--listen on Youtube
1. Gloria--Patti Smith 
2. Me and Bobby McGee--Janis Joplin 
3. Marquee Moon--Television 
4. Because the Night--Patti Smith
5. Blank Geneartion--Richard Hell and the Voidoids 
6. Hey Joe--Patti Smith
7. Touch Me--The Doors
8. Voodoo Child--Jimi Hendrix
9. Piss Factory--Patti Smith 
10. Heroine--The Velvet Underground 

Introduction

I’ve called this blog the Boomerang Generation partially because that’s where I find myself at the moment: I’m 22, just out of college, and I boomeranged back home to live with my parents. I know that my situation is far from unique, and I figured I could try to write about it. I have always been a fan of half-starting blogs and never really keeping them up. But with this unexpected amount of free time that has been afforded to me—seeing that I’m a part-time employee who is no longer a student—I am going to actually try to keep up with a blog for more than just a few months.

And the focus is going to be all books concerning the Boomerang Generation, or at least generations or groups of people that feel lost, in the middle, waiting for the next thing to happen. I want to read books about people who are in the awkward transitions in their lives, and I want to write about those books. As I write reviews of these novels and stories, sometimes I will attempt to join my two favorite mediums of entertainment by creating a playlist to go along with a book I review. Even if the type of transition in the book I read is different from the one I am making in my life, I know it will be inspiring to me as I attempt to find my way into adulthood.

The arts—specifically literature or music—have always provided me with a sense of companionship. For whatever situation I may find myself in, there is always a novel to turn to or an album to listen to where I can find a comrade…even if, sometimes, they are just a fictional character.